BlogSpam

Before the storm, there are comments from ‘regular’ names with similar email addresses (usually hotmail accounts that don’t have a valid profile) that are very generic. ‘Hey, love the site’ or ‘Was just browsing through blogspot’—24 hours after that comment is left the spam starts.

It’s like getting the random poetry in your hotmail box. All the spammers are doing is to see if your e-mail account really exists. If that poetry message doesn’t bounce back to them, it’s a valid e-mail harvest.

The spam is for pills and it’s coming from differing IP addresses. I’ve read about installing a MT(movable type) plugin like MT-Blacklist but I don’t know.

I’m seriously bothered by the lack of intelligence of these spammers.

The only good reason to comment-spam a weblog is to get an increase in your search engine ranking. An increase in your search ranking will make you appear higher in results (imagine being the #1 result on google for ‘las vegas hotel’) and will inevitably bring in more revenue.

A lot of search engine algorithms work via reciprocal linking – which is a nerdy way of saying ‘if site A likes site B, site A will link to site B’. When you fill out a comments form on most weblogs you’ll see a field for name, email, and url. Typically, the URL field will automatically link in a form like this:

The URL associated with bofe is an unmasked http://www.bofe.org. Whatever site I posted that comment on has just linked to me. If it’s a site with a very high ranking, then making this comment has definitely helped me.

The URL associated with this comment points to http://www.bofe.org/mt/mt-comments.cgi?__mode=red&id=635 which is just a simple javascript relocation to that site. Typical search engines don’t spider it, and since it just has a ‘click here’ associated with it instead of something a little more precise, it hurts the potential spammer even more.

well, i can think of a couple of other good reasons to spam a blog, and even more to spam forums, but i can’t condone any of it.

it is a testament to the materialism and capitalist evil in our society when you cannot go anywhere to escape marketers, the same marketers know you hate them, and don’t care, because they know if one moron clicks through or answers an ad, it’s worth it.

hmmm…let’s think of some things that I’ve seen. Asking for a “site critique” for your new business (which happens to be a web design business) in a forum dedicated to business owner’s looking for information on building their own websites.

that’s just one example…none of my reasons are technical in any way, but any time you allow people to make their words available to others, you run the risk of someone saying, “I just tried this new product, and it’s great” only to find that they are selling it.